Zetti ATCs Jan 2010, The Artist Trading Club

Chriss at The Artist Trading Club suggested watching Teesha Moore's youtube.com videos to see how Teesha goes about journalling Zetti style.
There are 9 videos.
First one is called Layer 1: Paint.
Then a series of 4 called Journalling Collage
and a final 4 episodes called Journalling Pen Work.

They were fascinating to watch, even if you don't like the style they are worth watching to see another artist at work and the processes she uses.
It's one step further along the nosey road of What's on your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW).

Having watched the videos I got organised and followed her instructions to the letter, improvising if I didn't have her craft materials but staying true to the style.

Firstly I painted a background using Reeves soft sheen acrylic.
Teesha recommends soft sheen because pens often bleed and won't flow properly on matt acrylics.

Then using cut up bits of designer paper as I didn't have any magazines I glued on a border with white PVA.
Teesha uses magazine cuttings and copies of previous journalling pages and a tape glue roller.

I took some photos of my progress at each stage.




Then you collage a central image.
After which using PanPastels you add some shading around the border and central images.

They look like that awful 1970's make up to me.
If you're old enough to remember using 1970's make up you'll know what I mean.

Teesha had a PanPastel sponge tipped tool to apply the stuff but I had to improvise as I had neither.
I used Versamagic chalk ink applied with a cosmetic bud then dabbed the cosmetic bud on my tongue so the ink would shade evenly away to nothing.
A little bit of spit did the trick.



For the journalling Teesha recommends Sharpie poster paint pens, in medium nib, fine nib and extra fine nib in white and black. Copic sketch pens. Caran D'ash Crayons.
I have none of those so used a black Staedtler pigment liner 0.1 size and a white Sakura gelly roll med gel pen. These suited the ATC size space.

Teesha explains how to shade your lettering so that it appears that you have a consistent light source.
If the sun is coming in from the top right hand corner then your lettering will have shading on the left side and the bottom. Anything that is facing right is NOT going to have shadow.

The things I found out about my crafting preferences is firstly that I dislike journalling.
I really really do not want to write all over my pictures.
I had to force myself to do it and I only managed to do it on two ATCs before rebellion struck.
I obviously only like my stories on the side or on the back and not all over the front.
I don't mind a quote or title but not writing all over.
I couldn't care less about shading on lettering or lettering styles.
Secondly I don't like doodling at all either.
I have absolutely no desire to create dark or macabre pictures.
Teesha uses absolutely no shiny. None what so ever.
Wot no shiny?
Nope.

The one thing I did like was making up bright, cheerful and funny central characters.

Click on the images to make them bigger if you want.











Despite all this I enjoyed doing the challenge, as I like trying new art styles.
I love the end result and I really didn't want to part with them; but I did, spit and all ;-)
(If you got one and are concerned, they were sent in clear plastic wallets so you don't have to touch them!)

The other thing is I don't really enjoy working this small.
So I don't imagine I will be making that many ATCs in the foreseeable future.
But I retain the right to change my mind, so please don't hold me to it. :-)

Whatever you are up to, happy creating!
Gini
xx

Keys ATC Nov 2009, The Artist Trading Club

Keys have been a very popular challenge theme in the last few months.
As I have already done Keys for the ABAA challenge in September I tried to think about keys from a different angle.
OK, so what phrases refer to keys.
Key to my heart.
Key to the door. And......

A few days pass and...... Nope, no more ideas were forthcoming.
That is pretty rubbish on the ideas front don't you think?

So I gave that up and went back to rabbits and hidden keys and had a ball dreaming these ones up.

Have you heard about the latest craze that is sweeping the country this Christmas?
Santa's Elves have been working day and night to meet the demand for flying keys and not just any keys; these are magic keys that only rabbits can fly.
Up and down the country hutches and warrens have been buzzing with excitement over the prospect of what will be lurking in Santa's sacks.

Flying Key Fever is making newspaper headlines and causing many mother rabbits considerable anxiety and sleepless nights over potentially limited stock (you didn't really think this was just a human condition did you?).

A fortunate few rabbits are already whizzing around the skies showing off to anyone who will watch them. I was lucky enough to be out with my camera and managed to capture a few of their antics in pixels.











Then I made another butterfly with a key body.




I found an image of a cute red squirrel. I love red squirrels (well just about any animal with fur or feathers really).
So this squirrel called Bob has buried his flying key to wait for the 24th December and hopes to dig it up and sell it for a fortune in nuts to some poor, nearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, "gotta get a flying key" Rabbit. That is of course if he can find it again.



Then I noticed Julia peeping through her keyhole and low and behold Lloyd Grossman's show "Through the keyhole" popped into my head.
Come on all together now "Who lives in a house like this?"

Apparently he puts that accent on, it's not real, so Himself informs me. Now I could understand him doing this if he was a comedian, to give himself a memorable uniqueness, but he's not a comedian, he's a food critic and cook. Just shows you how little I know about the limelight and the media.

Cop a load of how out of focus this picture is, I blame my camera of course, it couldn't possibly have been me.
Oh! and on this one I thought I would finish it off with a blanket stitch border, it was AFTER I had bodged the holes in it that I realised I couldn't actually remember how to do blanket stitch which was so incredibly handy I had to do a little dance.
I got out a sewing book, but the written description of just how to do this stitch might have been written in Swahili for all the sense I could make of it, so I had to wing it and invent a new stitch called the Schmare Stitch.

Named in Tribute to the late great Jack Lemmon for his fantasmagorical performance as Felix Ungar in the Odd Couple and that wonderful scene of him having a sinus attack in the coffee shop - schmaaaare, schm, schm, schmare. (Who needs Meg Ryan doing her "thing" in a coffee shop when we have Jack...)
You can watch this scene on you tube if you like :-)

Presenting the Schmare stitch -
which as you can see is quite badly untidy, but it's a new stitch and I haven't got it polished to perfection yet :-)




I did finally come up with something for "The key to my heart" and took yet another awful picture of it with that temperamental camera of mine, which I think was having it's own sinus attack today.




These two have absolutely nothing to do with this challenge (I could have been just a little bit wicked and just left them here and let you try and decide what they had to do with Keys. The answer of course being absolutely nothing, but I'm good, allegedly, Santa says so and his sacks are very full...)
I did wonder how much of a difference a central image can make to the same background, quite a lot seemingly.



Happy Crafting everyone!
Gini

Last Bad Hair Day ATC for The Artist Trading Club Swap Sept 2009

I was wondering if it was possible to make "shiny grunge" that didn't look like a dogs dinner.

I have no idea who the man in this image portrays but it came from The bumper book of papers from the Crafter's Paper Library, which disappointingly is printed on semi gloss paper which is not what I would've knowingly purchased. Still...

The resemblance of this chap to Billy Connolly is startling don't you think?
Either he is a great great relative of Billy's or he could be The Billy Connolly caught in the Victorian Era and he got there by hitching a ride with Spanky.

I'm not sure if I have managed to achieve a visually pleasing shiny grunge punk mohawk.
I like it, but that might be because I like Billy Connolly :-)

As you know I struggle to photograph shiny well, so the real look of the thing is somewhere in the middle of these two photos.
Click on them to make them bigger.




Happy Crafting everyone!
Gini

Spanky does Jonathan Dodgson Carr in 1895. ATC Bad Hair Day.

We are each responsible for our own happiness aren't we?
Well, I nearly peed myself laughing making this one.
(I don't think I should be admitting this but hey.)

I saw on The Artist Trading Club blog that September's theme is Bad Hair Day.
Spanky's eyes lit up and she wanted to have a go.

We (?) were eating lunch of crackers and cheese.
She held the knife and I held the fork. (Run Away Now)
We got to looking at the box of crackers again with a crafter's eye this time.

This is what we were eating.
Click on the pictures to make them bigger.





If you can't read it from the picture, it's my photography skills not your eyes, (your age is just fine, honestly)

It says:-

"Biscuits of Distinction
Carr's Table Water in their original form first appeared in the late 19th Century as a refinement of the ships biscuit. Water instead of fat was used to blend the dry ingredients in order to keep the biscuits fresh on long voyages. Carr's cabin biscuits with their delicate, crisp texture proved extremely popular with seafarers....."

Seeing as we had polished off the packet I cut up the box and Spanky made this.
Click it to make it bigger.



It says:-

Spanky does Jonathan Dodgson Carr in 1895

Mr Carr Esq was not a happy chappy, he asked for a light trim and got... well he didn't know quite what it was, but it was not good.

On his way home the seagulls had dive bombed his monstrous hair but after glumly staring at his reflection in the mirror he had the most marvellous idea!

"I know" he thought "I'll use water instead of fat in ships biscuits and rename them Carr's Table Water, biscuits of Distinction."

Disclaimer. Please note: This story is based on absolutely no facts whatsoever apart from J.D.Carr establishing the Carr's Table Water. The rest is just the product of an over active imagination.

It's one of those conundrum things, if Carr hadn't invented the biscuit then Spanky being a time traveller couldn't have taken them back in time to him, but if Spanky hadn't gone back in time and put biscuits on his head, would Carr have invented the biscuit???
It's all complete tosh of course but it entertained me no end!


But I don't think I can bear to part with it. I think I need to make a set of these.
Actually I might be getting a bit ahead of myself, I haven't even asked if I can join in yet. Oya!

How I made it.

Brayered Andirondack inks in pool and sunset orange on white card. Stamped circles in watermelon and a rubbish white ink from ink it up that hardly had any ink in it and went straight in the bin, what a waste of money.

I use 230 g/m Watercolour paper for any shapes that I stick onto projects. In this case his body and his hair. I find that watercolour paper can handle any applied medium and at this thickness I get rigidity but I'm still able to cut it into intricate shapes quite easily. The 300 g/m (thicker) watercolour paper is better as a background for much larger projects.

Buying watercolour paper. For this sort of thing you don't need expensive brands of paper.
I get 18 sheets of A3 in a pad from "The Works" for £4. It's made by Boldmere.

I painted his water biscuit hair in acrylics. His body in blue metallic acrylic and heat embossed a stamped image in glitter gold on his coat. I edged the piece in eggplant in Versamagic chalk ink.
I glued everything with white PVA.

Happy crafting everyone!

Gimme 5, Order of the Opus Gluei Challenge 22

This is my first time entering this challenge.
I met Rosemary through the Awfully Big Adventure Challenges and I have been admiring her and Jana's horns....the Viking Helmet Horns.

When I started this type of crafting last November I was obsessed with glue. For the first 6 months I was convinced that with the right glue I could make ANYTHING.
I don't think I was as delusional as to think I could cure cancer with the right glue but it was close run thing for a while. Maybe world peace...

I have had a long and arduous battle with the need to glue a project so that it can safely bare the weight of an elephant for 30 minutes otherwise it might fall apart within a week and be NO GOOD.
I am now at the point where I will be happy if my glueing can bare the weight of a baboon for 5 minutes. (Just baby steps, slow but sure baby steps.)
Speaking of steps, I would imagine that there is a 12 step plan for glueing addictions, there seems to be one for just about everything else.

I am happy to make the Opus Gluei Oath.
After finishing these ATC's I inexplicably had orange on the sleeve of my cardigan, now I am sure I didn't actually use anything orange in making them, in fact I can assure you that no orange was harmed in the making of these ATC's.
But the orange was there none the less.

However, I don't think I can eat glue.
I did get a bit lustful for the golden gel mediums that everybody in crafting blogland raves about.
(Strangely, no one cares about them in book reading blogland. I mean one day it could make the difference between the life and death of a well loved and over read book.
Favourite shiny book in your hand OR pages blowing hither and thither with the last page MISSING - gasp.)

I now have the golden gel mediums, they ARE very good, but hand on heart I've never been tempted to taste them. I probably could be persuaded if the glue were teemed with Nutella and I hadn't had chocolate in a while (two days).
Fortunately chocolate is at every turn in the land of Shiny along with just the right glue for the job.
What a difference a year can make.

I was planning on making 5 ATC's (honestly!) so I did 8 backgrounds on the basis that I would probably want to bin 3 of them. I didn't reject any of them and was on a roll, got in a muddle with the counting of them, (well I HAD nearly run out of fingers) and ended up with a series of 7, with 8 ATC's in it.
Then ATC number 6 of 7 started out as 3 of 7, but there was already a 3 of 7 so I crossed that out and made it a 4 of 7, then realised that there was already a 4 of 7, by this time my brain cell had caught up with my hand and I checked to see if there was already 5 of 7 which there was so it became 6 of 7. Are you confused yet? Because I certainly was.

So I am mistakenly giving you 8 Angel ATC's instead of 5, but it's not for the want of trying I can assure you. (I think it was the hidden orange that tipped the balance between a normal challenge entry and this rambling madness.)

Trying valiantly to regain control of this post.

"In the arms of an angel fly away from here.
You're in the arms of an angel.
May you find some comfort there."

Excerpt of some of the lyrics from Angel by Sarah McLachlan.

I heard my new favourite Angel quote recently.

"Angels have no philosophy but love."

The lovely Linda used it in her gorgeous fabric book collaboration.
If you haven't visited Linda's blog before, grab a coffee because you'll get lost in her passionate and joyful celebration of colours and textures. She mixes her media like nobody else and makes all those different art mediums sing Hallelujah together - just dazzling!

Click on the images to make them bigger.




Left side 7 of 7. Right side 8 of 7 Traded. This background was painted with that most under rated artists tool, my finger (No you can't borrow mine, use your own).
I was in fact Gold Finger for a while, James Bond had his eye on me. If the film was being remade in the land of Shiny, the dead lady would not be painted all over in gold (what everywhere??) but would be heat embossed in gold (ouch). What a difference a few decades can make.






Left side 6 (yes) of 7. Right side 2 of 7.





Left side 4 of 7. Right side 3 of 7. She's not that bubbly in real life, what is it with cameras?






Left side 5 of 7. Right side 1 0f 7 Traded. I brain farted with this one and forgot not to make this dimensional, so the little cherubs are mounted on foam and look great standing proud but they might not fit very well in those ATC clear wallet holders. I did back them onto card first so they are not floppy cherubs (phew). I'm nearly sure I prefer them without the stars on them. But I thought they might be thought a bit plain. I was not particularly happy with the stars until I edged them in Sakura stardust pens.


Some weird physics laws must have come into play with the backgrounds because I used metallic acrylic paints. Well I haven't got a cuttlebug or similar so can't emboss paper, so used a textured wrapping paper that whilst not a foil is a plastic coated super shiny paper.
Look.






The acrylics blended completely differently from normal on this paper. The purple one one the left is how the acrylics blended on that paper and the purple, red and gold below it is applied in exactly the same way on plain paper.
Weird.
The greens on the upper right is on the shiny paper and the bottom right shows just how each colour doesn't show up distinctly on top of each other on plain paper, whereas they do on the shiny paper. I even tried putting gesso on top of the shiny paper to see how the paint blended then. It blended just the same as on the shiny paper. I don't understand.
If one has the urge; unfortunately by using a fingernail the acrylics will scratch off the shiny paper; fortunately one just has to control those urges.
(Ha, now I've done it. That's like saying "No, please don't look"...)






All of these ATC's are up for trade.
(Which is why I've made the song and dance about labelling each one.)

Either leave me a comment or e mail me :-)


Happy Crafting everyone!

ABAA A bird in hand? Challenge August 2009. ATC We clad ourselves with false colours

I really didn't want to miss the challenge this month but had resigned myself to the fact that I would because my project is big (A3 size), she's posh and she's only half finished. She also wouldn't take kindly to being rushed. So I'll post her later in the month when she is ready and I have more time.

But then the lovely Sylvia sent me a book on making ATC's, showing ones with flaps and windows and hidden bits of loveliness and it set my brain cell whirling.
Also the delightful owl stamp that came free with the July 09 edition of Craft Stamper magazine has been sitting on my desk hooting "use me, use me". And then a phrase from the book 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith has been buzzing around in my head, so I've put them altogether tonight in a little ATC.
If you've never read Alexander McCall Smith before he has a deft and sensitive understanding of human relationships and is well worth trying. He's also written lots of books to choose from!










We've all done this at one time or another haven't we?
Trying to fit in or trying to stand out or trying to banish loneliness.
I like him best in his real colours, I think we all shine best in our real colours, whatever they may be.

I hope I'm not too late for the deadline.
:-) This is my best shiny side smile Linda and Rosie!

Will finish visiting everyone this week, look forward to seeing you all.

ABAA Dragonfly Challenge July 2009. Drag Dragonfly ATC Series

My heart sank this month with dragonflies being the theme, they really give me the Heebee Geebees, what with their googily compound eyes, segmented bodies and strange bums...

So I thought I need to use artistic licence (which I think is still available from the Post Office) and get rid of some of the bugginess in them.

Seeing as I'm no good at small pictures (but I want to be), I thought I'd try some ATC's because they really are a challenge for me. Based on photos of Emperor Dragonflies which have very nice wing shapes, I made an ATC sized template designed to be used with brads so the wings are moveable. I got rid of its head just like the Queen of Hearts said, and gave it a round one.
I had to widen the body to accommodate the wings and brads. I used the smallest brads I could find called mini circle brads. I drew a heart shape for it's bum (You can't beat a little bit of lovey dovey donuts unless it's shiny lovey dovey donuts).

But it still wasn't enough, I thought these need to be comedy ATC's to finally banish the bug.

Sorry to anyone out there who loves proper dragonflies......... look away now!

So here are my

Drag Dragonflies ATC's, a series of seven. I'm sorry but the photos I've taken do not do justice to their shinyness... click on them to show them bigger.

1. Albert Einstein contemplates the shape of Dragonflies bums and just how they fit into life, the universe and everything.

2. Terry Thomas is a magnificent man in his flying machine.




3. Captain Mainwaring gets blustery in florals.




4. Darth Vader "You don't know the power of the dragonfly."




5. Ferdinand shows us his shiny bits.




6. Marc Bolan is the Dragonfly King.
(This one is for my husband)




7. Kate Bush - Babooshka "To see if he, would fall for her incognito."




I had a brain fart making this one and put the top set of wings on upside down - duh!

I sooo wanted this outfit when I was a teenager................




I've done a template, all you need to do is left click it to make it bigger then right click it, save it to your computer using "save as" and print it out at A4. It hopefully will print the right size, at least it did for me when I tried it.
I suggest you print it onto card, cut the shapes out and use those as templates. Remember to cut inside the black lines so the pieces don't keep getting bigger and bigger.

Go on, you know you want to...

Please let me see what you come up with :)